🦴 A Museum Morning! 🪖

February 3, 2026 by Mrs Morrison | 0 comments

Today both the P5-7 classes of Kirkcolm and Leswalt embarked on a trip to the local museum to get a hands on look at the role our local area played in World War 2! We have spent this term examining all the different aspects of WW2 through our social studies and through the fabulous work of Miss Douglas, we have managed to link up with Madeline at Stranraer Museum to see what they had to offer on the topic.

Pupils learned about Stranraer in the past and during war time, they were able to explore the different artefacts the museum had and even get hands on with them! (pleased to report that everyone was very careful and respectful of the objects!)

There were 4 boxes with separate artefacts and pupils moved round in groups of 4 exploring the items of the boxes before trying to decide what person the artefacts were linked to. At the end they then had to become museum curators themselves and arrange the artefacts in a ‘mini’ exhibition.

Overall this was such a fantastic way to spend the morning and a great way to engage with what our local community has to offer. We are so grateful to the wonderful staff at Stranraer Museum for welcoming us in the morning and making use of their facilities and we hope to have many reasons to return in the future!

Rory – ‘My favourite part was when we went into the replica Anderson shelter and heard all the sounds civilians would have heard during the war👂👂. We did an activity where we split up into groups and got a box with items in it and we had to guess who the items belonged to. Then we had to make displays with all the objects in them. We saw a biscuit tin radio which planes dropped on enemy camps to listen to messages.’

Bryleigh – ‘ The museum was amazing and had to so much cool things to see like, cheese pounders, gas masks, old shoes, pictures, jewellery, stones, and so much more! At the museum there was a very nice woman called Madeline she was the one who showed us around the museum and gave us tasks. My favourite part about the museum had to be when I saw the gas mask it was so cool and very interesting, although don’t try it on because I learned that there’s a chemical in there to stop the gas getting through and it’s bad for you! When we were at the museum we did a task that we had to read and look at the stuff in a box and find out who the person was what I mean by that is what the job is and after you make a display with the stuff you had in your box, there were four boxes so we were spilt into four teams it was very fun! There was a Anderson shelter there and she showed us what an air raid siren sounded like. We learned more about rationing and we learned about the woman’s’ land army there and it was really fascinating! 🌍⚔🫡’

Allyssa – ‘One of the things Madeline showed us was a old phone that had recorded messages from people who had survived ww2‼️ in Stranraer and if you wanted to hear the messages you had to dial 14🔢. The last thing we did was we got into four groups and rotated around room to look at artefacts🏺🏺 that you can hold and touch with your group and make a museum exhibit with our groups.’